Warrior of the Huns, the "golden mammoth" and other archaeological finds that revealed the secrets of the life of the ancients

2024 Author: Richard Flannagan | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-15 23:55

Every year, many fossilized human remains are unearthed. Despite this "abundance", interest in dried mummies remains unchanged. And it is not difficult to understand why this is so, because mummies can tell a lot about the life of people thousands of years ago, about their strange traditions associated with love, life and death.

1. Warrior of the Huns

In 1993, 12-year-old girl Alena Kipchakova discovered a collapsed grotto near the village of Kam-Titugem in Siberia. Inside it rested the remains of a Hun warrior and his weapons. About 1,700 years ago, a human corpse was wrapped in fur and laid on a wooden bed. Next to him was a bow, which was originally almost the size of a modern man. Pieces of birch arrows showed that the shafts were marked in white and black, possibly for quick selection while hunting.

The tips were iron, and pieces of bull's horns were inserted into the arrows. As they wrote in ancient Chinese literature, carvings were made on these pieces of horns, thanks to which the arrow made a whistle in the air. This was supposed to frighten the enemy and disorient the deer. No matter how hard the researchers tried, they were unable to replicate this effect. The mummified archer is now kept in a relatively unknown museum in Kokorye (it is managed by Alena Kipchakova), because local residents refused to large institutions that wanted to purchase it for their collections.

2. Woolly pygmy mammoth

The “island effect” is when a large species grows smaller in order to adapt to the environment of an “island” - an area with changed habitat conditions. The woolly mammoth was one of the species that had to change. However, there were rumors about the existence of mammoths, which were tiny by nature, and not because of the evolution of the "islands". In particular, people reported that they found the bones of these animals, both adults and young, on Kotelny Island in Siberia. In 2018, scientists headed to the island and discovered the first officially recognized remains. The unique animal had golden yellow fur, so it was soon nicknamed the "golden mammoth".

However, there was a big problem. The body was in an inaccessible place, so the remains cannot be examined. The surrounding permafrost helped determine the age of the remains - from 22,000 to 50,000 years. It looks like it was an adult, but only about 2 meters tall. Normal sized mammoths were about 5 meters high. Given the age of the animal, this is most likely a separate dwarf species of mammoths. At that time, Kotelny Island was connected to the mainland, that is, the “island effect” had nothing to do with it.

3. Surprise in Greenland

The discovery of heart disease, particularly atherosclerosis, in mummies is nothing new. However, when the researchers set out to test five Inuit mummies (4 adults and 1 child) found in Greenland, they expected all to be healthy. In fact, everyone had atherosclerosis, which narrows the arteries in the elderly, despite the fact that they were young adults (plus a child).

It is also caused by the heavy consumption of foods high in cholesterol, such as pork, beef and dairy products. But the Inuit ate mostly marine mammals and fish, which are loaded with omega-3 fatty acids - a balm for heart health. These are the first cases of atherosclerosis in Greenland mummies, and the reason for its occurrence remains a mystery. One theory is that people breathed in too much smoke from indoor fireplaces.

4. Unique thigh tattoos

The body of a woman was recently brought to the British Museum. Her mummified remains were found in 2014 in northern Sudan on the banks of the Nile River. When researchers examined the body, they found a tattoo on the inside of the thigh. To make the faded image clearer, they illuminated it in the infrared range. A unique image was born - the tattoo consisted of intertwined ancient Greek letters. On it was written "Mixaha", the name of the Archangel Michael.

The monogram was quite familiar, since archaeologists had already found it on church artifacts and mosaics. However, this was the first time she had met on a human body. The religious tattoo could have been a protective spell, or perhaps just her faith was very important to this woman. The ink was around 1,300 years old, which also made the tattoo the first body art dating back to this time period.

5. Earliest European autopsy

In 2013, researchers examined a gruesome relic. This is an incompletely preserved mummy (it consisted only of shoulders, neck and head). The most creepy thing was that the expression on the mummy's face was frozen in an eternal scream. At first, scientists thought that the body dates from 1400 - 1500 years, but after analysis it turned out that the age of the mummy is 1200 - 1280 AD. Scientists were agitated, because it was believed that science in Europe was in the XIII century in complete decline. However, the mummy was made by experienced professionals and surprisingly advanced techniques.

The ancient doctor mixed lime, beeswax and red cinnabar mercury. The potion was injected into the veins to preserve the body and add some "natural" color to the circulatory system. The back of the skull and brain were also skillfully removed. This ran counter to the popular belief that autopsy was poorly developed in the Middle Ages. This person may have even been saved for future use as an exhibit for medical institutions.

6. Embalmed Human Heart

France is famous for romance, but in the 16th and 17th centuries, this country had rather strange ideas about what this concept means. During this time, it was considered romantic to be buried with the heart of a husband or wife. In 2015, several mummified hearts were found under the Jacobin monastery in Rennes, near which there was a large cemetery dating from exactly the 16th - 17th centuries. In one of the coffins lay the remains of an elite class woman who adhered to this macabre tradition.

Lady Louise de Quengo died in 1656. While her well-preserved body is remarkable in itself, the most interesting find inside the coffin was a lead valentine-shaped urn that contained her husband's real heart. Soon they decided to check the most ornate coffins and found four more similar urns. Interestingly, three of them showed signs of atherosclerosis.

7. Mummified hand

In Hungary, in the village of Nyarlorinch, there is an ancient cemetery. In the period from the XII to the XVI century, about 540 people were buried there. When researchers flipped through old photographs of the excavation, they found a child's mummified hand. Interested in why only one limb was mummified, all the remains were analyzed. The reason for the mummification was that the amount of copper on the hand was simply off scale. The source of this copper was a coin that was clutched in the child's hand. This turned out to be an unknown method of mummification, but the coin was a well-known tradition.

When a child died before his baptism, he was buried in an urn with a coin to pay Saint John the Baptist for the ceremony. Thus, the child could go to heaven. The child from Nyarlorincha was indeed buried in an urn. Ironically, such a tradition has never featured in any recording in Hungary before. An even bigger mystery was the date of the coin - between 1858 and 1862. This meant that the child was buried in Nyarlorincha 150 years after the cemetery was abandoned.

8. Human finger cocktail

The bars are renowned for their creative approach to alcohol. However, one cocktail is hard to beat. To order the Sour Finger cocktail, you need to go to Canada, to the Sourdough Saloon bar in Dawson City. Here you can order a signature cocktail, which looks extremely unusual - a glass is filled with whiskey, after which a mummified human toe is placed in it. The drink is served on one condition - when the visitor drinks the cocktail, his lips should touch the toe. When this happens, the bar issues him a certificate (to date, more than 100,000 people have received their certificates).

The history of the drink is just as strange. It appeared in 1973 after a businessman found the frostbitten toe of an unknown Prohibition smuggler. The finger has been in the smuggler's shack since the 1920s, and was about 50 years old at the time of its discovery. As a result, the entrepreneur decided to come up with an unusual way for the locals to show their courage. By the way, few people know that the original toe was accidentally swallowed in 1980, but since then several identical frostbitten toes have taken its place.

READ ALSO: Rotten Finger cocktail - a drink for real daredevils

9. Solution of two mysteries

Rosalia Lombardo is one of the most famous mummies in the world. When a two-year-old girl died of pneumonia in 1920, her father commissioned Alfredo Salafia to embalm her. It was done so well that Rosalia still looks asleep. Together with thousands of other people, her body was buried in the Capuchin catacombs at the Sicilian Capuchin monastery. The rest of the corpses were prepared for burial by the monks and were naturally mummified. Rosalia's perfect appearance was achieved thanks to a long-lost embalming recipe that no one can repeat since then.

For decades, the girl's corpse frightened visitors as it seemed to open and close its eyes. In 2009, anthropologists solved both puzzles. One of Salafi's handwritten manuscripts was found and the ingredients were listed. The embalmer used glycerin, formalin, zinc sulfate, chloride, and a mixture of alcohol and salicylic acid. He just injected this mixture into Rosalia. And creepy eyes are just an optical illusion. The girl was mummified with slightly open eyes. Neighboring windows illuminate her blue eyes. But as the time of day changes, the shadows fall in different ways, and sometimes it seems that the eyes are closed.

10. Club of the Dead

Rosalia is not the only tourist attraction in Capuchin catacombs … There are thousands of other bodies. Although not as well preserved, the researchers dubbed these mummies the "Club of the Dead." It seems that only the elite, dressed in their finest attire, could expect to be buried there. Most creepy, no one was actually buried. Instead, the dead, dressed in luxurious camisoles, military uniforms, ball gowns and robes, were seated in various positions along the walls or hung from the walls.

People were divided by gender, age and profession. In the hall of professionals there are several doctors and lawyers hanging from the walls with hooks. In the children's room, the children went on their last journey in their cribs. The underworld of the catacombs of the dead was maintained by monks who were paid by the relatives of the deceased to change their clothes and keep them clean. Today, most mummies are in poor condition, but they can still be seen.

To continue the topic, we have collected little-known facts about mummies, which are much more interesting than cinematic fiction.